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VOLUNTEER TOURISM

Published: March 13, 2005

To the Editor: ''More Vacationers Answer the Call to Help'' (Feb. 20) deeply troubled me. To take largely untrained vacationers and place them at schools, farms and building sites for two weeks serves no greater purpose than to stroke the volunteers' egos.

These communities do not suffer from a lack of able workers, but rather a lack of money to pay them. The money these volunteer vacationers pay to volunteer for two weeks could easily pay a native professional's salary for a year.

The sage Rambam writes that the highest level of charity is giving to enable the recipient to become self-reliant. It is arguable how low on the list is touring the disenfranchised under the guise of samaritanism. It is our conscience that should make us charitable. And some of these tour operators are for-profit companies!

I can only hope that these trips spur the vacationers to make monetary donations to the communities that have so deeply affected them.

Cole Wolfson
Bethesda, Md.

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